***“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.” ― George Orwell, 1984****—All photos* *©dickslaughter.com*

Welcome to one of the most surreal and messed up experiences of my life. A lot of people don’t know this about me, but I take photos of things other than rock and rollers. Landscapes, graveyards, protests, police officers, and for years I liked photographing Trump supporters as well, ironically. Their blind devotion to a con man clown felt like something worth documenting, somewhat like performance art. For a long time I even thought it was funny. But after the so-called Army Birthday Festival, also known as Our Great Leader’s Birthday,

I don’t think it’s funny anymore.

I’ve spent some time in Washington, D.C. Mrs. Slaughter went to law school at Georgetown, so I sort of lived there part-time for those years. I attended Obama’s first inauguration, Trump’s first inauguration, the Women’s March, and countless other gatherings in the city. Because of that, I know the terrain pretty well, and I know the difference between a truly massive event on the National Mall and one that feels hastily and reluctantly put together.

This was definitely the latter. I drove in from Baltimore, arriving a little after 1 p.m., and was able to find parking without much effort, which is very unusual for a Saturday in D.C. We grabbed some gentrifier scooters and headed toward the festival area. Streets were blocked off for several blocks around the site, but scooters and bikes were allowed past the first set of roadblocks.

Since the insurrection, and even more so since Trump took office the second time, D.C. has started to feel less like that wonderful city of monuments, parks, and free museums and more like a police state, with fences, roadblocks, and an underlying sense of dread.

As we got closer, the atmosphere became clearer. The crowd wasn’t nearly as big as the buildup suggested, and you could feel it. There were pockets of people in red hats and clusters of flags, but it lacked the energy of the truly massive gatherings I’ve seen on the Mall before. Still, there was plenty to photograph. The kind of strange political theater that seems uniquely American.

What first struck me as odd were the recruitment booths and advertisements. Something I have never seen in DC Not just for the armed forces, which you might expect, but also for the TSA, Homeland Security, and any number of other government agencies, all promising a bright future as a bullet catcher or an agent of the state.

Ignorance is Strength

War is Peace.

You could handle the weapons and pretend you were a real life GI Joe, playing war with Dad with the Washington Monument in the background. But this wasn’t just for father and son bonding. All the children were invited to play with guns and climb on the tanks as well.

War is Peace

Ignorance is Strength

I talked to a few soldiers who really did not seem excited to celebrate the Army’s birthday. One of them, who preferred I leave of his name out of anything I write because they were ordered not to talk to the media, spoke with me anyway. I guess because he thought I seemed cool.

He said, “They didn’t tell us we had to come here until yesterday morning. We had to set all this up, and there are not that many people here. It’s not our birthday at all. It’s Trump’s. That’s why we’re here. It’s total bullshit.”

I had to agree that there weren’t that many people there and that it was total bullshit. As a whole it felt less like a celebration and more like a great ego fest for His Majesty. But everything also felt sort of half assed, which made it come across more like a promotion campaign for war. Looking back on it, I guess it was really a campaign for the war on ourselves and on whoever else this administration thinks it can profit from destroying.

What struck me most was the narcissism of the crowd and how much they seemed to be enjoying it. People were posing for selfies with the tanks and laughing; it was just another Facebook post, and this was just another fun weekend, except the kids were climbing on military murder machines and playing with real guns.

But what scared me most was the demonstration of the new high tech AI robot dogs. Surveillance machines capable of deadly force with weapon attachments. The children were petting them like they were real dogs. The crowd loved it.

Coming soon to a neighborhood near you.

When I first posted some of these photos saying there was low attendance, both ISM and I were bombarded with nasty messages and comments accusing us of being left-wing Democrats trying to make our great leader look bad. Some even said I had photoshopped the images.

I can assure you I am not that good at Photoshop.

And ISM is a cooperative with many different views and opinions. I can only speak for myself. I am not a Democrat. Personally, I am anti-authoritarian and distrust all government. But as an American, I can truthfully say I have never felt this embarrassed or this worried about a president before.

Not only was the attendance low, but they also made a big logistical mess of things. There was one entrance to the festival grounds and two to the parade area, both creating massive bottlenecks. At a certain point they stopped letting people through to the parade area, which is why the stands looked empty on TV. Many of the people who were there simply couldn’t get in.

By no means was everyone in attendance a Trump supporter. There were plenty of people openly opposed to the president, and from what I saw they were not shouted down or kicked out. That said, people did give the gentleman in the photo below a very wide berth.

There was a medium sized protest outside that had its own sort of festival atmosphere, with street vendors and musicians. They did a lot of shouting at people stuck in the parade entrance line, but the Trump supporters mostly just shrugged it off and laughed. You kind of got the feeling the attitude was, “We won. There’s nothing you can do.”

And sadly, that feeling seemed mutual on both sides of the protest line.

Freedom is Slavery

War is Peace

I went there as a photographer expecting to document another strange moment in America. Instead, I left feeling like I had seen something darker. Tanks, guns, AI war machines, and a crowd treating it like a weekend festival. Maybe that is the most disturbing part of all. Not the weapons, not the spectacle, but how normal it all seemed to everyone else.

I’ll leave you with a few more photos from the day’s festivities, including a link to the spectacular fireworks show that closed the night. It scared the shit out of half the city for the first few moments. Because of the way the city is laid out, most people couldn’t actually see the fireworks. They could only hear the explosions.

For a few seconds, the looks on people’s faces were pure panic, thinking it might be a terrorist attack, until everyone realized it was just a very expensive fireworks show. Like the whole thing, a big waste of the people’s money that could have been spent on something better than a war party.